Cop Haters Make Spurious Arguments About the Dangers of Police Work 

Desperate attempts to disarm police to further their own interests.

By Michael P. Tremoglie

I received a tremendous response after I published the true data about race and police shootings - not the half-truths proffered by the media or soi disant civil rights groups. But all the data - currently available from impeccable sources - that indicates there is no genocide of blacks being conducted by racist white police officers.

Now it is necessary to debunk myths being told about the nature of police work. Myths that are constructed by the same contemners of law enforcement to justify disarming police officers.

The misopolice set engages in post hoc fallacies to prove that police have too much armament. It is becoming fashionable among these callow sciolists to advance the argument that police work is not as dangerous as other occupations therefore they do not need to be heavily armed. But in order to do so they compare apples and oranges not apples to apples.

Consider this ludicrous - and not to mention self-contradictory - argument made in an article titled How Dangerous is it to Be a Cop? published in the August 2014 edition of something- perhaps a blog - called The Freeman. The author states:

"Policing doesn't even make it into the top 10 most dangerous American professions. Logging has a fatality rate 11 times higher, at 127.8 per 100,000. Fishing: 117 per 100,000. Pilot/flight engineer: 53.4 per 100,000. It's twice as dangerous to be a truck driver as a cop—at 22.1 per 100,000." He goes on to say that if accidents are eliminated police work is even safer than these other professions.

Let me point out the sophistry of this. The writer compares the hazards of police work to occupations such as logging and fishing which have higher fatality rates. Then he emphasizes that if non-homicide fatalities from police work are removed the fatality rate of police would be even less. Ergo police work is not that dangerous so why do they need all those weapons.

But lets compare apples to apples shall we? What are the homicide fatalities of logging and fishing? What are the occupations that have greater workplace violence rates than law enforcement?

This is the crux of the matter when arguing about armament - not how many accidental injuries or fatalities occur. What is significant is how many fatalities and injuries are caused by the actions of other humans intentionally trying to injure or kill someone. Police are armed to prevent innocent people and themselves from being killed or injured not to prevent to accidental injuries or fatalities.

According to the most recent data, the occupation with the highest rate of workplace violence is law enforcement - not logging or fishing. As far as workplace homicides - the sales professions lead all occupations, followed by "protective services which includes law enforcement."

But I would suggest that sales personnel - and I have been in both sales and law enforcement - do not become homicide victims while trying to protect innocent lives or while trying to restore order. This is solely the realm of protective services.

So be wary of unsophisticated dilettantes, who make specious arguments about the perils or the duties of law enforcement. These people are reminiscent of what Harold MacMillan said about liberals - "They offer a mixture of sound and new ideas but their new ideas are not sound and their sound ideas are not new."

Except in this case I am unaware of any sound ideas being generated from the misopolice crowd. Instead what is offered are sanctimonious supercilious statements made to further their own self-interests.